Washblog

We have the foregone conclusion of the Petraeus "report" today. Oh, this is actually the conclusion. It was never going to be other than it is. It was a perfectly facetious exercise from inception. Even as Petraeus suggested by inference that the "report" might conceivably be a turning point in terms of deployment levels, he occupied himself day and night at his main job: increasing the sustainability, lethality and mobility of escalated troop strength. New weapons systems, such as the Osprey (okay, cool for Boeing), are being deployed this Fall - as planned - and the infrastructure is being built for more forward basing of troops, to diminish the stand-off distances at which our warfighters engage "the enemy".

And that's only natural. It is not General Petraeus' job to weigh in on the War Powers question. He, his boss and his colleagues have a project under way. They need funding from the Congress and there is a significant minority in the Congress who would not give them that funding. They must delay, defend and...occasionally...dissemble in the interest of making that project fait accompli.

Congressman Baird - or any Democrat - can go to Iraq as many times as she wishes, learn all there is to learn, make her military assessment and it's moot. She knows all she needs to know about the Iraq War right here.

Professor Lawrence Freedman concludes what we all know: "In irregular warfare, superiority in the physical environment is of little value unless it can be translated into an advantage in the information environment."

The truth of this is so obvious, that even the lunatic Bin Laden, who actually thinks he will be physically conquering Spain soon sees it.

In a letter written by bin Laden to Emir Al-Momineed, he stated, "It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for the battles."

The Bush Administration is inarguably the world's greatest and most powerful exponent of the insane theory that the desire in the hearts of some ignorant, marginalized Muslims for an imaginary caliphate is an existential threat to Western governments. It wouldn't pass the laugh test, but for the incredible economic and military power of the people stating it.

If you are concerned about terrorism, you must be concerned about the media voice of terror, and that is the Republican Party. To endorse the Republican Party's campaign of insane, terror-media-blitz is to endorse terrorism itself. To endorse the central terror policy of the Republican party - Iraq, of course - is to endorse their campaign of demonstrably mendacious propaganda in aid of terror.

Brian Baird is free to quit his job as the representative of the people of Washington's third district and move to Iraq where he would, no doubt, be able to use his skills to help those people. But what he cannot do - provided he is the mild-mannered Congressman he seems and not, actually, Superman - is fly between the Washingtons and Iraq and single-handedly save the country while the Republicans use our presence there as their principle propaganda tool. For that matter, neither can General Petraeus win a battle which is already lost while his "supporters" do everything they can to strengthen the forces of chaos, every minute of every day on Fox News.

Who does Congressman Baird think he is?  He is going to tell the world the "truth" while the people who agree with him lie at the most vast scale imaginable? Congressman Baird will save the people of Iraq and America with a nuance?

Please help the Congressman understand just how confused he really is.